I posted yesterday about Rupert Sheldrake’s “heretical” idea of morphic fields contributing to behavioural changes in populations. Coincidentally, today I came across this article on the New Scientist website – “Can experiences be passed on to offspring?“:
What was your mother up to before you were even a twinkle in her eye? You might not think it matters, but it seems that in mice at least, mothers that receive mental training before they become pregnant can pass on its cognitive benefits to their young.
Previous studies in both people and animals have shown that a mother’s experiences while pregnant can affect her offspring’s gene expression and health, even years later. However, it was not known if experiences prior to pregnancy had an effect.
…researchers suspect that the mother passes on this cognitive effect during gestation, perhaps by releasing hormones that prompt “epigenetic” chemical markers to appear on her unborn child’s genes, regulating their expression after birth.
Moshe Szyf at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, calls the work “remarkable”. “The mother can modulate the intellectual capacity of her young,” he says. “If it happens in humans it has immense implications.”
I’ve often wondered at the precise actions that arise out of instinctual behaviour in animals. This seems to take it a step further.
